The present invention relates generally to the field of mobile computing, and more particularly to masking sensitive data in mobile applications.
Enterprises attempt to strike a balance between protecting their sensitive data while allowing their personnel to utilize that sensitive data when needed in the operations of the enterprise, both internally and externally. Sensitive data often consists of employee, customer, partner, and vendor records containing sensitive details, for example, names of individuals, addresses, telephone numbers, email addresses, social security numbers, credit card information, health insurance details, health records, and financial records. Such sensitive information is often shared through a variety of applications, including mobile applications, which may be viewed internally and externally with proper authorization. Enterprises take steps to keep such sensitive data private both to protect their own interests and the interests of their clients, partners, and customers. Much of this data is required by law to be kept private. For example, the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) act makes it mandatory for credit card payment processing companies to maintain data confidentiality while storing, processing, and exchanging credit card data.
Another problem enterprises face is that the definitions of who can or cannot see certain data may change over time. Changes in regulations and security/privacy policies can limit which employees have access to certain types of data such as personally identifiable information (PII) and protected health information (PHI). Also, if an enterprise decides to outsource operations, there can be issues of data privacy and security. For example, a call center application written ten years ago when customer service agents were all internal employees may not be easily used when the customer service agents are outsourced to an external enterprise and even more so when these agents no longer work in the same country. In the previous examples, the enterprise may need to substantially modify or rewrite the application to comply with new or modified privacy and security requirements.